by Nicole Yurcaba
A few weeks ago, a Russian navy ship docked in Cuba. Cannon blasts greeted the Perekrop, and the navy ship’s four-day visit communicated to the world that Cuba’s defense of Moscow is unlikely to change. For many, the significance of this event brought to mind a time when Russia and Cuba were nearly inseparable bedfellows. For others, the navy ship’s docking signified the difficult times Russia faces in a global theater currently ostracizing it because of its full-scale invasion of its sovereign neighbor, Ukraine. Meanwhile, two years after historic, anti-communist protests rocked Cuba, little has changed in the country. Many of Cuba’s leading activists remain jailed and endure harsh prison conditions. Lo and behold, behind the scenes of current events detailing the reunification of two old political friends comes Cristina Garcia’s relevant and hilarious novel Vanishing Maps (Alfred A. Knopf, 2023). Its characters are quirky, its plot is dreamlike, and its relevance to America’s ongoing discussion about immigration and assimilation are striking.
Vanishing Maps, despite its constant focus on separation from family and home, isn’t a novel that one disconnects from easily. It’s a page-turner, a family saga, philosophical and intimate in its own unique way. Celia del Pino, the aged matriarch of a widely dispersed Cuban family, struggles to understand her descendants. There’s the memorable Ivanito, living in Berlin and working as a translator and a drag queen. Then, there’s the adrift, single-mom punk rocker, Pilar. A literal human representation of Cuba’s pro-Russian ties develops in the shrewd and savvy Moscow elite, Irina, Ivanito’s cousin. Celia, meanwhile, navigates her reunification with her long-separated lover, Gustavo.
Ivanito is, by far, the novel’s most memorable character. Haunted by migraines and his mother’s spirit, he battles his constant depression by embracing his flamboyancy and drag queen persona. A polyglot, he dabbles in translation work and lives a life deeply entrenched in his love of the Russian language and Russian writers. His affinity for all things Russian is representative of Russia and Cuba’s close ties, which, diplomatically, strengthened after 1959’s Cuban Revolution. However, what makes Ivanito more memorable than his exceptional talent for mastering languages (he works in at least four, according to the novel) is his celebration of the self, which primarily occurs through his drag queen persona, La Ivanita. With this persona, Ivanito reminds readers that, at one point in history, Berlin served as a thriving queer capital, where, until the Nazis placed anti-homosexual movements high on their agenda, sexual liberation reigned supreme.
Nonetheless, no character better represents Cuba’s close ties with Moscow than Irina, Ivanito’s cousin. Irina is a successful businesswoman who runs a lingerie business. Despite her success, she lives alone and is still recovering from the deaths of her parents, as well as struggling with her disassociation from her Cuban heritage. While Irina thrives because of the post-Soviet Union economic reforms, she struggles with what reform means for a modern Russia. She poses, “How many borders had fallen in her lifetime? The Berlin Wall, the far-flung boundaries of the USSR, the shifting puzzle of the former Soviet bloc. Nothing lasted forever. Nichego.” Irina also poses a thought which might leave readers scratching their heads: “Maybe their new president, Vladimir Putin, could put things right? Anyone was better than that oafish Yeltsin.” Irina’s question refers to when Putin became president after Yeltin’s surprisingly sudden resignation. As The Kyiv Independent reports in July 2023, “According to a recent poll conducted by the Russian Levada Center, 68% of surveyed Russian citizens want Vladimir Putin to be re-elected in the 2024 presidential election.” Thus, despite the novel’s historical setting, Irina’s question also resonates with Russia’s current situation, where the majority of Russian citizens live an alternate reality where, after the Kremlin instituted extreme censorship laws, they are cut off from Western media.
Irina also represents another key theme in the novel: the assimilation of diaspora members. Unlike her other family members in the novel, Irina is the one who most distinctively separates from her Cuban heritage. Even Ivanito’s love of the Russian language and Russian literature doesn’t erase his Cuban identity. Thus, Irina’s character becomes representative of Cuba’s inability to–despite the Soviet Union’s dissolution– ultimately forget its Russian ties. Nonetheless, as Irina climbs upward on the social ladder, and as she reunites with her other family members in Berlin, she transforms into a different sort of representative, one–unlike today’s Russia–willing to let go of its past and become part of a global community. Her transformation makes her an even more complex character, though she does not necessarily possess Ivanito’s intriguing emotional and philosophical landscape.
While Vanishing Maps does not initially set out to become a political novel, by its final page, readers learn that they must look deeper than the family saga ultimately dominating the plotline. This duality is part of the magic of Garcia’s novel. From the first page to its last, Vanishing Maps is the kind of novel that leaves readers laughing and thinking about the topographies they inhabit, and the ones their families have historically left.
Nicole Yurcaba (Ukrainian: Нікола Юрцаба–Nikola Yurtsaba) is a Ukrainian (Hutsul/Lemko) American poet and essayist. Her poems and essays have appeared in The Atlanta Review, The Lindenwood Review, Whiskey Island, Raven Chronicles, West Trade Review, Appalachian Heritage, North of Oxford, and many other online and print journals. Nicole teaches poetry workshops for Southern New Hampshire University and is a guest book reviewer for Sage Cigarettes, Tupelo Quarterly, Colorado Review, and The Southern Review of Books.
